10th December

22 21 N
73 01 W

Weather: cool, windy as all hell up to 21 knots E to ESE, waves 3feet over reef

15 MORE SLEEPS, TIME TO GET THE THINGS ON YOUR GIVING LIST BOUGHT

I must have been tired yesterday as I got the countdown wrong and only noticed this morning - did anyone else notice?
The move back to Abraham's Bay was most definitely the right one, we had a much better night tucked in here behind the reef even though the wind was howling all around us all night long with sustained blowing at 21knots. The waves were not too high as they had to break over the reef before getting to us, plus the water depth of just 12foot would have helped (meaning that we only have 5.5 feet beneath our keel) we weren't rolling and our anchor was firmly imbedded so we weren't going to get pushed onto the reef in our sleep.
A further check on the weather for the next few days shows that the wind is going to continue to be at around 22 to 25 knots and coming at us from the east / south east which means that we can't go any further as we would be motoring all the way and as the wind would be on our nose we would be bashing into the seas, riding up and down like a hobby horse on steroids, in other words it would be far too uncomfortable for us all and would use an awful lot of diesel and no wind power. For the next couple of days at least we are going to be sitting tight and doing that "hurry up and wait" stuff. We took our time getting up and moving this morning as we had nowhere to be in a hurry. For the first time this trip Gerry got out our stove top percolator to make the coffee, he usually uses the coffee machine. It took a couple of attempts to get the strength right but we were soon enjoying our morning cuppa sitting in the cockpit watching the waves breaking over the reef. There are no other boats within shouting distance and as mentioned yesterday, we are 3 miles out from the town so we could have danced around naked and no one would have seen but we kept some decorum and acted like we were being filmed! After breakfast, the rest of the crepes that I had made and kept in the fridge, Gerry tried to do what he doesn't do very well and sat relaxing, it lasted all of 20 minutes! He fidgeted around and finally announced that he was going to dive the anchor again and take some photos under water. Out came the snorkeling gear and the Go Pro camera only to find that the lock for the waterproof case for the camera was broken meaning that the camera couldn't go underwater. It wasn't really an issue as the camera I use is apparently waterproof so I transferred the photos that were on it to the hard drive and Gerry jumped in the water with it. I sat out on deck watching him battle against the current and the wind as he made his way to the anchor and took pictures, then to the stern to take a couple more pictures of the prop, he then handed the camera up to me and took a scrubbing brush and removed some growth from around the edges of the antifouling line, luckily there wasn't much and the prop was perfectly clean. It was then time for him to get out of the water, shower and get out of wet swimmers. I do a lot better at the relaxing stuff and only did a couple of general housekeeping things like make the bed and tidy stuff away. We read books for a short while; had lunch using all the things which were on their last legs and about to die (I was disappointed to have to throw away a whole cucumber which had gone to God in just the few days since Georgetown) and then sat down to read again. At this point Gerry examined the backs of his eyelids and began snoring - amazing what a brief swim can take out of you!
I did some mental exercise and did a few sudoku puzzles - have to keep the brain from fogging up too much, it's a pity I can only get the crossword puzzles on my iPad when I have internet access, I should have brought a paper copy with me!
We watched a movie when Gerry woke up, until it was time for sunset photos, which didn't happen as there were clouds in front of the setting sun. It's now time to cook up some dinner, again using the stuff in the fridge which won't last any longer.
We are expecting more of this windy weather tonight so we will be doing nothing exciting tomorrow either.